Boeing crashes on Juba runway, airport closed

A commercial passenger jet has crashed on the Juba runway, disrupting commercial and evacuation flights leaving the embattled South Sudanese capital. No serious injuries or deaths were reported from the crash, but observers said the nose wheel appeared to have collapsed. Juba Airport has only one runway, and at the moment hundreds of expatriates as well as South Sudanese with foreign passports are waiting in the departure lounge. The Boeing 737 was on its way from from Khartoum. It was not immediately clear what airline it was from but it appeared to be a commercial passenger jet. An airline operations officer speaking to Radio Tamazuj said that the cabin of the aeroplane was intact and there had been no fire, but added that the aircraft now lacks a nose wheel. “It’s stuck on the runway until they can find a way of dragging it off,” he said. The airline worker explained that at a larger airport such an accident could be cleared in a matter of hours using specialist equipment, but that in Juba there was no way of telling how long it would take. He said that perhaps some way could be improvised to drag the aircraft off the runway using an army tank or heavy equipment borrowed from the UN. News photo: Crashed Boeing 737 at Juba Airport, 19 December 2013 (Twitter)Exodus expats South Sudan started after quiet night in Juba (18 December 2013)